Second year volunteer Casey Wilson started and coordinates a recreation/resource center and provides individual counseling. First year volunteer Sophia Cartagena provides tracking and support for court adjudicated youth.
Tides Family Services is an agency which deals with the poor and marginalized. Its mission is to provide high-risk youth with comprehensive, preventive services that promote personal growth and better connect them with their families and communities. Whether or not these youth will graduate from high school is very questionable. As a result, Tides offers a non-traditional approach to reach out to youth and their families. The goal of Tides' programs are to promote family stability through clinical and supportive counseling, crisis intervention, advocacy, and education in order to maintain very difficult youth at home with their families and within their communities.
The agency itself is comprised of over 100 full and part time staff. Many are young, at the beginning of their careers; others provide the leadership and supervision necessary to help the volunteers and staff do their best work. There are four major sites: Providence, Pawtucket/Central Falls, Woonsocket, and Kent County. The focus is on the areas where the poor live. Although Tides has buildings in the heart of the poor areas, their offices are really in the homes, on the streets, and in the schools and communities. Volunteers experience the world of poverty and how it effects youth.
